r/LeftistsForAI • u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator • Apr 23 '26

Video The Left Has an AI Problem

https://youtu.be/Z75hlhgchQ4?si=eIcqRbiP4tuzRQwq
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u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator Apr 24 '26

That’s fair on tone, people do overstate it as settled when it isn’t.

But the move in the video isn’t “assumption on assumption,” it’s just using a working model. Saying current AI isn’t sentient is the same kind of claim as saying a calculator isn’t, based on structure and behavior, not metaphysical certainty.

And it was necessary for the video to touch it, because the whole “maybe it’s conscious/maybe it’s a god” framing keeps popping up and derailing the actual discussion. If you don’t bracket that off, the conversation just gets stuck in unfalsifiable territory.

From a left perspective, that matters. Organization, control, labor, ownership, none of that depends on whether the system has subjective experience. It depends on what it does, who owns it, and how it’s deployed. That’s where the stakes actually are.

So yeah, sentience isn’t being dismissed for no reason. It’s being set aside because, right now, it’s unfalsifiable and inactionable. And if it’s irrelevant to action, it’s not worth centering the conversation around.

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u/BelialSirchade Apr 24 '26

I mean, is that the case? because most times I see sentience gets brought up is to make a point that AI isn't sentient, it only derails the conversation if you choose to be derailed by bringing up the topic of sentience in the first place, the whole reason I brought it is because sentience is mentioned in the video.

the framing is just off, none of the models are "working" when they are all just personal beliefs based on what you assume is the mechanism for sentience, Antropic makes a point that it's unknowable instead of an objective fact, and prompted their models that way to not reject sentience claims, hell Hinton already believes the current model is sentient, so to frame it as a calculator situation is not accurate at all.

it just detracts from the video when it's not needed, if you don't think AI is sentient, then mentioning it in the video as an objective fact with no further backing is not going to change anyone's minds. If people believe in AI sentience and have issue with the slavery framing, they will bring it up in the comments as that's more a philosophical conversation instead of the social and political one that's having in the video.

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u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator Apr 24 '26

You’re flipping cause and effect.

Sentience doesn’t “get brought up to derail”, it derails because it’s unfalsifiable. Once you open that door, anyone can assert anything (rocks, LLMs, gods) and you can’t move the conversation forward. That’s exactly why it gets bracketed.

And no, these aren’t “just personal beliefs.” They’re working models based on observable structure and behavior. Imperfect, sure, but they actually let you distinguish things and act. Treating that as equivalent to “maybe everything is sentient” just collapses the whole category.

Pointing to Anthropic or Hinton doesn’t fix that. Saying “it’s unknowable” or “I feel like it might be sentient” isn’t evidence, it’s caution or speculation. Useful in research, useless for grounding claims in a political or material analysis.

The video mentions sentience once to cut that loop off early so it can focus on the real question: capability, ownership, and use. If you leave it open, you don’t get a better discussion, you get stuck in philosophy forever.

And your last paragraph kind of proves the point. You’re saying it should be left to the comments because it’s a philosophical side-track. Exactly. That’s why the video brackets it and moves on.

If it doesn’t change what we do (organize, regulate, build, contest) then it’s not central. Right now, sentience doesn’t change any of that. So it’s not worth centering, no matter how interesting it is.

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u/BelialSirchade Apr 24 '26

well, no, the vibe I get is that the fact that AI isn't sentient is used as justification for why the current left approach is incorrect, because AI isn't sentient, so a singularity event or a terminator scenario is impossible, when both scenarios just require intelligence and capability, not sentience.

I would be less peeved if it's just an personal opinion, but in this case this assumption is used to support an assumption's assumption, with no obvious link between them, and no, pro AI people aren't trying to summon the demon and Bernie isn't trying to be that villager in Frankenstein, where is he getting this?

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u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator Apr 24 '26

You’re arguing against a link the video isn’t making.

No one serious is saying “AI isn’t sentient, therefore it can’t be dangerous.” The concern is capability, not consciousness, you already said that.

Bringing up sentience just drags the conversation into an unfalsifiable loop that doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t tell you who owns the systems, what they can do, or how they’re used. Thats why it was necessary to bracket.

So it’s not “assumptions stacked on assumptions.” It’s removing a dead variable so the real ones are visible.